Sunday, March 18, 2007

I have always been fascinated by the mind. It's a terrible thing, you know. I mean it's a terrible thing to waste (hee hee). In particular I've been captivated by the study of consciousness. Scientists do a pretty good job of pretending to be objective, but when it comes to studying consciousness, objectivity starts getting muddy (read 'impossible'). And when you get into it, you start to realize that "objectivity" is just a farce. No one is objective. Everyone has an opinion about everything. It's the soft science version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The part about the observer influencing what is observed.

When you start to get into consciousness, you invariably start to ask questions like "Why do I think the way I do?" and "Who am 'I' anyway?" - Classic philosophy. About 13 years ago, I did the Landmark Forum, and to paraphrase Douglas Adams - it illustrated that everything I had held to be true, ain't necessarily so. For the first time in my life, I was able to effectively mold that "me" that I was so sure was already established. And I could create that "me" in any way I saw fit. I have been leading seminars for Landmark Education for several years to that very end - I figured why keep that kind of thing to myself, everyone should have it.

In the not too distant past, I was dead set on the academic track - I was going to use my Ph.D. to study the kind of brain plasticity involved in altering really set pattens, like who you know yourself to be. It then occurred to me, who cares?. Knowing how that happens will make absolutely no difference, even in the small scheme of things. What would make a difference, however, is actually altering those patterns of thinking for large numbers of people.

So I've altered the course of my life. I am now working full-time on altering - fundamentally altering - the experience of being for human beings. I love science. I will continue to talk about things from the viewpoint of a scientist, and I will continue to have people critically think about the world around them, but my day job is ensuring that people who register into the Landmark Forum in the Seattle area - powerfully complete the course.